Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Oh-BTW wande-

Who owns the KCS? Is it part of a series of ownerships ending up in a magalopolis?

Churches offer World Cup half-time services

World Cup visitors can pray for divine intervention if their team is losing in special half-time religious services.

Two Berlin churches, the Berlin Cathedral and the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church, will be holding 15-minute half-time services throughout the tournament.

The services will feature football related sermons and hymns that resemble team anthems allowing worshippers of the World Cup to pray for victory.

Bernhard Felmberg from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church said: "We don't want to fight against the World Cup, we want to use it to support our message."

In the pub tonight the England v Sweden game was on three plasma screens to a very noisy house.

After the match the News came on and I was keeping my eye on it as I always do, but not my ears. I couldn't hear a word. They were celebrating England topping the group and thus having to play some no hopers in the next round. A lot of cash is at stake.

There was an item about Iraq.

Some soldiers getting killed.

There was only me watching.

This kid's photograph came up. A good looking lad. Not very Waspy.

Underneath it there was what I presumed was part of his last message home.

It said- "I love my country. I love God"

What a feewking ID-iot eh?

He's in love,or used to be, with an "imaginary friend" according to some posters on this thread and he is,or was, a superstitious and frightened fool according to some intellectuals who are sat safely in front of their TV screens,3 to 5 stone overweight and eating a delicious pizza, concocting theories which are specifically designed to present them in,as Kenny Everett used to say, "the best possible light".

Frank-

You are a man of the world I know so could you explain this to me.

I was leaning on the bar after the match and this boring old fart who had been talking to two ladies in their mid forties, a guess I'll admit, came over to talk about the football on which subject I am an expert.

After listening to his tripe for a minute or two, I am a very understanding person, I asked him if the two ladies were with him.

He replied -"They would be if I wanted them".

Then he went back to talk to them for the next hour.

Now-the question is-why would two good looking ladies of a certain age with cleavage on display spend their precious time socialising with a boring old fart who didn't want them.That seems to run counter to Darwinian sexual selection theory or am I missing something?

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Spendius, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy...and many of 'em deal with the bizarre shyt that motivates the fair sex."

School fight is over 'B.C.'
(Associated Press, June 21, 2006)

Forget public schools' religious wars about intelligent design and evolution, students' religious songs and artwork, after-school Bible clubs, graduation prayers and gay sensitivity training. The latest fuss involves letters.
The staff of Kentucky's education department proposed guidelines this year that would eliminate the conventional designations of years as B.C. ("Before Christ") or A.D. ("Anno Domini").
The proposed secular substitutes to shun references to the birth of Jesus Christ were B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era") and C.E. ("Common Era").
Several other states have shifted to that nonsectarian style in history curriculums, since it's preferred by Jews and increasingly observed by secular scholars. Biblical Archaeological Review publishes Christian, Jewish and secular authors and lets each decide which designation to follow.
The American Family Association has campaigned for Congress to make B.C. and A.D. America's official system and defend "the birth of Christ as the dividing point of history."
In Kentucky, after some uproar, the state's Board of Education approved an April compromise to list both options: "B.C./B.C.E." or "A.D./C.E." That alphabet soup didn't satisfy cultural traditionalists, whose complaints were supported by Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher.
The conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky accused the board of "capitulation to the winds of political correctness." The group said "in recent years we have seen more and more attempts to hide the influence of religion in our history. Our schools should not be in the business of hiding things from students."
The former president of Kentucky's Baptist convention, Hershel York, said "this is one more event in a full frontal assault on western and Christian values."
But the director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, Nancy Jo Kemper, saw no reason to fret and found it "absurd" to claim that Christianity is under assault. Schools were simply adopting initials that are increasingly "used in the secular world and in academic circles," she said.
The board reconsidered matters at its mid-June meeting and decided to remove "B.C.E." and "C.E." from date references in Kentucky's official "Program of Studies," though teachers are free to note this option in the classroom.
The same issue flared several years ago when some Roman Catholic publications adopted the B.C.E./C.E. scheme.
The conservative New Oxford Review found the nonsectarian substitution rather silly. "One is left wondering just what happened between B.C.E. and C.E. to flip history into a new epoch. Something must have happened. What was it? And why are certain people so determined to keep mum about it? ... What is common about the 'Common Era'?"
The calculation of Jesus' birth year originated in 525 with the monk Dionysius Exiguus ("Denis the Little") but didn't become popular in Europe until the eighth century through the influence of the Venerable Bede, an English theologian.
An odd aspect of the calculation is that Jesus Christ was born "before Christ." That is, today's experts agree that Dionysius erred and Jesus wasn't born in A.D. 1 but before that. (Denis used no zero year.)
The Bible offers these clues:
Luke's Gospel says John the Baptist began preaching in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar's reign, which began in A.D. 14, and an unspecified time later Jesus began preaching when he "was about 30 years of age" (Luke 3:1, 23). That sets the general period but not the year.
Matthew and Luke report that Jesus was born while Herod the Great was still king. By most reckonings, Herod died in what we now call 4 B.C. or 5 B.C.; some put it later though still "Before Christ."
But historical writers avoid other dating systems, following the explicitly Christian years or the same numbers under the "Common" euphemism.
Options:
?-Judaism reckons time from the traditional creation of the world (or in some interpretations, of humanity) by which this is the year 5766.
?-Islam divides history from Muhammad's hijra (flight) from Mecca to Medina, according to which this is the year 1427. The faith's lunar calendar has shorter years than those on the solar Jewish and Christian calendars.

Quote:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Spendius, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy...and many of 'em deal with the bizarre shyt that motivates the fair sex."

I don't have any philosophy Frank. Explain what you mean. I know what I thought about it and I was seeking to hear alternatives.

Obviously you are all quite shy of this sort of subject so if you want to drop it I'll understand.

What I mean is that I think I know possible scientific explanations but I wondered if there might be any religious ones or ones deriving from religion.

Evolution: World science academies fight back against creationists
(AFP News Agency, June 21, 2006)

A declaration signed by 67 national academies of science blasted the scriptural teaching of biology as a potential distortion of young minds.

"In various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied or confused with theories not testable by science," the declaration said.

"We urge decision-makers, teachers and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature.

"Knowledge of the natural world in which they live empowers people to meet human needs and protect the planet."

Citing "evidence-based facts" derived from observation, experiment and neutral assessment, the declaration points to findings that the Universe is between 11 and 15 billion years old, and the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Life on Earth appeared at least 2.5 billion years ago as a result of physical and chemical processes, and evolved into the species that live today.

"Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin," it said.

Signatories of the declaration include the US National Academy of Sciences, Britain's Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences and their counterparts in Canada, China, Germany, Iran, Israel and Japan and elsewhere.

"We urge decision-makers, teachers and parents to educate all children about the methods and discoveries of science and to foster an understanding of the science of nature.